Old paper making: a historical cultural heritage
- By Jason Lee
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 16, 2016
In an era when craftsmanship is dying out with the rise of commercialism in large parts of the world, one village in the remote mountains in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region still maintains the oldest way of making paper.
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Deng Xiuzhen, now in her mid 50s, is always busy in early autumn when she lays out piles of the wet rough straw paper her family produces on the terraced fields to dry in the open. [Photo / chinadaily.com.cn] |
Shentan Village, lying in the middle of a mountain range 1,500 meters above sea level, is inhabited by 46 families of the Yao ethnic minority. It is famous for rough straw paper that it has made for hundreds of years by an unchanging traditional method.
Deng Xiuzhen, now in her mid 50s, is always busy in early autumn when she lays out piles of the wet rough straw paper her family produces on the terraced fields to dry in the open. Her gesture is like transplanting rice seeds in paddy field.
"When the weather is fine, we must hurry up," Deng explained. "My husband made the paper last night, ten pieces per pile."
From afar, the whole mountain slope looks like it has been decorated with mosaic tiles, and a distinctive smell of bamboo pulp pervades the air.
The paper-making workshop is actually a shack built on a small patch of flat land in the middle of the mountain, with a one-meter-high rectangular paper pulp pool located underneath.
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